FRANKFURT, Germany — Let Greece go: It’s a possibility that’s being considered more and more publicly in Europe.

There have been 2﻿1/2 years of bailouts, on top of broken promises by Greece to reform. The result: a fifth year of recession and, this week, political chaos. Voters Sunday favored parties that either oppose the terms of the country’s international bailout or want to renegotiate them. If it cannot get more rescue loans, Greece will go bankrupt and most likely have to leave the eurozone, the currency union of 17 countries.

The question confronting leaders in Athens, Berlin and other eurozone capitals could soon be:

What would happen if Greece left the euro? How much damage would that do to it and other countries in the eurozone? Has Europe insulated itself to a degree that it can cut Greece loose, while keeping its currency alive and its economy upright?

Among the possible scenarios are:

Greek chaos: Economists agree that Greece, where unemployment is 21.7 percent, would suffer even more turmoil and misery if it left the euro. A new drachma currency would fall by 50 percent or more against the euro.

So Greeks would try to pull their euros out of their bank accounts — before they could be converted into a new currency worth far less. Owners of Greek stocks would sell for the same reason. As markets plunged and deposits fled, banks would collapse.

The Greek government would still owe 330 billion euros ($428 billion), mainly to the other eurozone countries that rescued it, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Because those debts would remain in euros, it would have little chance of repaying them.

A bounce-back: On the plus side, the weaker drachma would make Greek exports cheaper and more competitive and could help the economy start growing again. Companies outside Greece might be attracted by the cheaper labor and real estate, encouraging them to move manufacturing plants there.

Tourism would also get a boost: Booking a hotel room on a Greek island, for example, would suddenly become much cheaper for foreigners.

Still, Greece isn’t a big exporter, so the extent of the benefits of a new, weak drachma might not be as great as hoped.

Contagion: The great fear, some economists say, is that if Greece leaves the euro, other troubled eurozone countries might do the same.

“The big danger is financial contagion,” said Dennis Snower, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. “The question would be, what stops the Portuguese from doing something similar?”

People might think “just in case, let me get my money out of the bank,” he said. “And if enough people think that way, then you’re sunk.”

The prosperous core of the eurozone — Germany, France, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria — would probably not escape. Their banks own a lot of the government debt of Spain and Italy. With 1.9 billion euros in outstanding debt, Italy is the third-largest bond market in the world after the U.S. and Japan.

Maybe not: Not everyone agrees that a Greek exit would be a disaster for the eurozone.

Greece is tiny, about 2.5 percent of the eurozone’s 9 trillion-euro economy. And it wouldn’t be a total surprise. The possibility of a euro exit has been hanging over markets since late 2009. Banks outside Greece have had time to write off their Greek investments — and not make any new ones.

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